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Brooke paused and met Ruby’s gaze. “Nobody who knows you would ever call you anything but responsible and careful.” She went back to work, adjusting the dress on the mannequin and then stepping back to look at it. “Are you going to see him again?”
Ruby turned her paper cup in her hand. “I don’t know. We didn’t even exchange phone numbers.”
“But he knows where you live right?” Brooke asked. “And where you work?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll see him again,” Brooke said.
Ruby sighed. “I’m just not sure it’s a good idea. It’s only been a year. And Adam — ”
“Is a fucking dickbag,” Brooke said. “And if you wait to have another relationship until Adam stops being a fucking dickbag, you’ll be single forever.”
A month ago, the thought wouldn’t have bothered her. She had Olivia and her job, her dad and Brooke. She enjoyed the time she spent on her collages, was getting used to the nights when Olivia was with Adam and she was alone.
It had felt like enough.
Now it seemed like a puzzle that looked complete right up until you looked a little closer and saw there was one piece missing.
It wasn’t a deal breaker. The image was still beautiful.
Almost perfect.
But now that she’d seen the tiny hole she couldn’t unsee it.
“Would that be so bad?” Ruby asked.
Brooke leveled a glance at her that made her opinion clear. “You’re twenty-six, Ruby. You’re going to throw in the towel on love so you don’t have to deal with Adam? So Olivia never has to have another man in her life?”
“I just want her to be okay,” Ruby said.
Brooke sighed. “Has it ever occurred to you that Olivia mightneedanother man in her life? One who isn’t an abusive fuckwad? One who knows how to love someone without controlling them? Without hurting them?”
The question hit Ruby where it hurt: her desire to give Olivia everything.
But it wasn’t all about Olivia. Roman had awakened something inher, something she thought she’d lost during her marriage to Adam.
She couldn’t unsee it, and she wasn’t sure she could stop feeling it either.
21
ROMAN
Basil’s was packed when Roman arrived there Thursday night. It wasn’t a surprise. Next to Friday and Saturday, Thursday was the bar’s highest revenue night. New Yorkers were eager to kick off their weekends and more than happy to do so a day early.
Plus, Thursday was fight night.
He nodded at the bouncer, who let him in past the line without a word, and made his way to the bar that lined one wall. The bartender was busy moving back and forth between customers, but he came right over when he caught Roman’s eye.
“The usual?”
“Vodka tonight,” Roman said.
The bartender nodded and went to work pouring Roman’s shots, then hurried back to his other customers. His name was Roberto Ortega, something Roman knew because everyone who was hired at Basil’s was approved first by Marnie, the manager Roman had hired to run it, and then by Roman, who’d nested the club under one of his shell companies the way his father had taught him.
The old man had been good for something at least.
Roberto didn’t give Roman preferential treatment because he owned the place — no one knew that, not even Marnie — or because Roman was one of the men who came to Basil’s to fight on Thursdays.
